Last year, the Media Research Center was fretting that a new iteration of “Star Wars” character Obi-Wan Kenobi wasn’t masculine enough. Now it’s mad over the thought that the director of a new “Star Wars” movie might be — gasp! — “woke” (whatever that is). Tom Olohan called up lying homophobe Matt Walsh to go on the attack in a Jan. 5 post:
The Daily Wire host Matt Walsh called out Disney’s continued embrace of woke ideology despite a series of brutal and humiliating losses in 2022 and 2023.
Walsh slammed Disney’s recent decision to hire a woke “feminist journalist” to make a Star Wars movie after diagnosing a string of recent Disney box office flops on the Dec. 3 edition of The Matt Walsh Show. Walsh said that Disney was making a bet that viewers would accept uninspired and woke content if it came from a beloved franchise such as Star Wars, before issuing a call to action: “You need to prove them wrong and make this the year that Disney is once and for all, finally canceled.”
Walsh’s attack on Disney followed the circulation of videos of this “feminist journalist” Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy espousing woke views and saying that she likes to make men uncomfortable. After ruthlessly mocking Marvel flops over the last few years, Walsh offered Disney some advice on how to stem the bleeding, “The solution for Disney as we mentioned at the top is pretty simple: Just make movies that are original or at least somewhat original and also not political.”
[…]However, Walsh pointed out that Disney’s choice to hand over Star Wars to Obaid-Chinoy, who espouses woke talking points about her role and storytelling in interviews, reveals that Disney has learned nothing. Walsh said that Disney is “going to double down on everything audiences hate,” by hiring a woman who was “the most feminist of them all.”
Walsh roasted Obaid-Chinoy’s avowed desire to make men uncomfortable. “Needless to say, if a man ever openly confessed that he enjoyed making women uncomfortable, he would be fired from whatever job he has—probably like, sent to jail. He certainly wouldn’t be hired to make the next Star Wars film nor should he, because… enjoying making people uncomfortable–that’s not a normal thing for a human being, that’s not healthy,” Walsh said, before criticizing saying that enjoying making people uncomfortable is “the definition of being a sadist.”
Neither Olohan nor Walsh said anything about the specific plot points of the the movie they’re attacking — that’s because it hasn’t been made yet. They’re freaking out over nothing because they feel they must keep the “woke” narrative alive (not that the actually bother to define what that means).
Film critic-turned-right-wing opinionator Christian Toto launched his own attack on Obaid-Chinoy in a Jan. 6 post:
Disney learned the very hard way what conservatives have been warning us for years.
Go woke. Go broke.
The Mouse House’s horrendous 2023 is finally over, but an attempt to revitalize its prized IP already has a whiff of woke to it.
It comes courtesy of “Star Wars: New Jedi Order” director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.
[…]Obaid-Chinoy of “Ms. Marvel” fame just suggested the first “Star Wars” film since 2019’s “Rise of Skywalker” may actually start production soon. “Soon” is subjective, of course. As of November, Ridley had yet to read a finished script of the film, to be penned by “Peaky Blinders” alum Stephen Knight.
The director teased the project during a New Year’s Eve interview on the far-Left CNN.
“I’m very thrilled about the project because I feel what we’re about to create is something very special. And we’re in 2024 now, and it’s about time that we had a woman come forward to shape a story in a galaxy far, far away.”
CNN did its part to push the director’s Identity Politics bona fides, describing Obaid-Chinoy as the first woman and first person of color to direct a “Star Wars” film.
That’s CNN being CNN, which ignored female directors like Bryce Dallas Howard and Deborah Chow. Both have directed episodes of small-screen “Star Wars” projects.
Toto’s bizarre insistence that CNN is “far-Left” indicates just how far-right he is. He went on to whine that the “Star Wars” universe had female heroes that didn’t need a female director to breathe life into them:
Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia played an outsized role in the first three “Star Wars” films. More recently, actress Felicity Jones headlined “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and small-screen “Star Wars” projects include “Ahsoka,” led by Rosario Dawson, and other strong female heroes (Gina Carano’s Cara Dune).
The director’s quote recalls Jennifer Lawrence lamenting the dearth of female action heroes while ignoring pioneers like Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Princess Leia and Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton).
The bigger issue is clear.
Once again, a “Star Wars” project may be defined by its woke bona fides, not the power of the story or premise. Ridley’s Rey is already working at a disadvantage. The character never became a beloved part of the “Star Wars” franchise like the key figures from the original trilogy.
She’s often dismissed as a “Mary Sue,” a near-perfect figure who doesn’t even work hard to achieve her Jedi powers.
We don’t even know if “New Jedi Order” will even make it into production given Disney’s recent “Star Wars” woes.
One thing remains clear.
New year, same woke messaging from a member of the Mouse House.
Like Walsh, Toto is attacking a movie that doesn’t even exist yet solely because the director is not a right-winger like him. And, like Walsh, Toto didn’t explain what, exactly, makes any of this “woke.”